The Kaplan piece on Harry Whittington, the man who Dick Cheney shot, is good. Whittington was really messed up by getting shot, his lung collapsed, a piece of lead in his larynx gives his voice a warble, and all told, he has 30 pieces of buckshot birdshot still in him. If you read this, and think back on all the Republicans who went on tv to chuckle about “peppering”, you may throw up in your mouth a little.
I don’t know a whole lot about the guy but he comes off as pretty decent: a rich Republican, yes, but one who actually seemed to give a fuck about prisoners when he was on the state prison board.
He doesn’t consider Cheney a friend, only an “acquaintance”, and he sounds a little peeved that Cheney never apologized to him.
drkrick
This guy sounds like the kind of old-school Republican you don’t see in power much anymore. It’s hard to blame him for leaving a party like the Texas Dems in the 50s and 60s.
Egypt Steve
So he’s Samoan?
Jrod the Cookie Thief
I don’t want to think about what kind of pressure Cheney put on this guy to make him apologize for getting shot.
That Cheney couldn’t even cough up a half-hearted apology of his own doesn’t surprise me.
Corner Stone
Yeah, this guy. He apologized for getting his face in the way of Cheney’s shotgun.
I really couldn’t care less what he has to say now.
beltane
There once was a time when some Republicans, even some conservative Republicans, were not illiterate, psychotic grifters. Dick Cheney was never one of them. He seems like a that rare type of person who is incapable of behaving decently towards anyone outside his immediate family.
cleek
In Soviet Russia, when government shoots you, you apologize to them!
/Yakov Smirnoff
El Cid
Don’t worry.
I’m sure that Cheney would be willing to take him out hunting again.
DougJ is the business and economics editor for Balloon Juice.
@Egypt Steve:
What’s a brother gonna do?
arguingwithsignposts
Can I just say that I hate, hate, hate, hate the free registration gimmick. I have a WaPo account from another computer, but I can’t be assed to dig up the nym/password, so I guess I won’t get to read *more* about how much of a soulless ghoulish fuck Dick Cheney is.
sigh.
Silver
Next time don’t go hunting with a drunk war criminal.
Where’s the personal responsibility?
stuckinred
The Reid-Angle debate is on CSPAN. Jesus Christ, Harry Reid sounds worse than Angle, Palin or the Witch.
soonergrunt
@cleek:
In
Soviet Russia, when governmentRepublican USA, when Drunken Misanthrope Vice President shoots you, you apologize tothemhim!There. FIFY.
Stuck in the Funhouse
Last night, when walking the dog for a piss, I saw a truck sized meteorite that landed no more than a mile away, and the ground even shook a little, though that could have been my knees knocking from seeing something I first thought was an airliner crashing. When the neighborhood dogs all started howling at once, I thought the heavens had spoken and something wonderful had just happened.
And now I learn, Dick Cheney is still wasting the oxygen and bandwidth of the world. That is real disappointment for a libtard.
Oh My, think I’ll have a cookie.
me
You shoot me in a dream, you better wake up and apologize.
Jrod the Cookie Thief
If we’re going with a Pulp Fiction theme, I’m somehow reminded of this.
gbear
If Cheney apoligized to him, he’d have to kill him.
sturunner
Apologize?
WTF? That would be contrary to NRA religious principles. After all, G-d IS a warm gun.
Mental Lint
Molly Ivins had a great take on Harry Whittington shortly after the shooting.
Yellow Dog
I think that would be birdshot, not buckshot. Big difference.
FormerSwingVoter
Wait, I don’t understand. Why would you apologize to someone for shooting them in the face? I mean, his face was just asking for it.
Mnemosyne
I’m pretty sure that any friend who shot me in the face wouldn’t be considered a friend anymore, apology or not.
trollhattan
@FormerSwingVoter:
Not to mention a tragic waste of precious ammo, in such short supply during these Obamatimes.
jrg
If it were buckshot, he’d probably be dead. Bird shot is much, much smaller – smaller than BBs.
geg6
I will never forget this poor man coming out of the hospital and apologizing to that piece of shit. Never. I felt so humiliated for him. He seems an old school GOPer, a guy I wouldn’t agree with much but to whom I could talk and feel that he was a decent, reasonable person. I don’t know any like that any more. They all seem to have been in my parents’ generation and they’re mostly dead.
Glad to see he oh-so-politely flips Cheney a bit of a flip of the bird.
Stan
@Yellow Dog:
Yep. I’m sure it’s no picnic being hit in the face with birdshot, but nobody would have survived buckshot. The whole point of birdshot is to have a bird left after you shoot it. With buckshot you’d only have a mess of bloody feathers.
jrg
@Stan: You’re also more likely to hit the bird with a bunch of tiny projectiles rather than a few larger ones.
At any rate, it’s truly astounding that Cheney never apologized. That man is a total sociopath.
John - A Motley Moose
You had better apologize for being in the way if Dick Cheney shoots you in the face. Unless you want to wake up to find the head of your first born staining your sheets with blood.
Parrotlover77
Just need to chime in as a bird lover and, well, a human with a heart, quail hunting (especially the cannned variety) is absolutely disgusting and cruel. screw them both for having a hobby that involves killing innocent sweet fuzzy gentle woodland creatures while drunk for the “fun” off it. screw cheney even more for doing the same thing with human lives to the entirety of the middle east. i have zero sympathy for either.
DonkeyKong
Is there any question that if Dick Cheney didn’t get into politics he would have spent the 70’s and 80’s cruising the interstate in Wyoming in a windowless van chopping up hitchhikers with joyless ineffeciantcy.
Omnes Omnibus
@DonkeyKong: Can you be sure he didn’t do it anyway? It would be irresponsible not to speculate.
And Another Thing...
@DonkeyKong: word.
And Another Thing...
@stuckinred: I’m soooo glad I don’t have to vote in Nevada. What an awful choice. I’d vote for Reid cause he is the lesser of two evils, but it’d probably make me cry. If he’d announce he won’t run for majority leader, I’d gladly vote for him. He’s such a weak sister.
DougJ is the business and economics editor for Balloon Juice.
@me:
Win.
Mark S.
I know I’m the twentieth person to say it, but I can’t believe Cheney never apologized to the guy. What a fucking asshole!
mai naem
@DonkeyKong: That would have created less damage than the damage he did create.
I watched Nicole Wallace this morning on Morning Ho with Barnicle, Willie Geist etc. laughing about Whittington. Oh, it’s just so so funny when the Veep shoots somebody. It’s just so hilarious. I swear I wanted to reach through my teevee screen and bitch slap Nicole Wallace first and then bang Geist’s head with Wallace’s Three Stooges style.
gnomedad
@Parrotlover77:
Lewis Black: “Going quail-hunting is like saying ‘I’m going fishing’ and going to a goldfish bowl and going ‘Got it!'”
WereBear
And I’m not going to bet money on that.
eemom
I thought it was kind of weird for the WaPo to pull this guy out of nowhere for a big article topic, but I’m glad the true facts came out — not only that old eviler-than-Satan-himself never apologized, but that he was hurt a lot worse than was reported at the time. And that he and Cheney were not, in fact, “old friends.”
Speaking of which, I confess that in these dark infuriating days of unfathomable stupidity and madness, I occasionally indulge in some quiet enjoyment of the fact that Cheney’s gonna die soon. Yeah, yeah, I know that’s evil of me and that death is too good for him, etc. — but
(1) I already know I’m evil and (2) even though he may not get the death he deserves, you can be quite sure that he isn’t too happy about the one he IS gonna get.
eemom
@arguingwithsignposts:
you should use “postsucks” for your password like I do. Easy to remember.
daveNYC
I don’t get much enjoyment from that fact, Cheney’s death should take years. That mofo needs to go out Sharon style.
WereBear
If Cheney fits a classic sociopath pattern, he will die believing he never got credit for his extraordinary achievements from an indifferent world.
Though I’m sure the money was nice.
JWL
“The vice president had been drinking”.
Better yet, “The vice president had been drinking heavily”.
That’s all the bit of truth-telling it would have taken, and the great white hunter could well have destroyed an American monster.
Birds of a feather….
Odie Hugh Manatee
It doesn’t surprise me one bit that Darth Cheney hasn’t apologized to the poor guy. He has always come across as a ‘I never make a mistake therefore I never have anything to apologize for’ type of guy. He views himself as a pinnacle of manhood, someone that everyone else should aspire to be like. In his opinion, he is perfect and has nothing to apologize for.
Ever.
@daveNYC:
IMO Cheney is already dead, he’s just being kept from decay by artificial means. With the money he has I bet he is going to be tossing every penny he can towards keeping his corpse from rotting.
Steeplejack
@arguingwithsignposts:
I think this link goes directly to the Post article without registration. (But someone check it, because I did register at some point in the distant past.) Using DougJ’s link at the top I still hit the registration screen, but this one works for me.
Joe Bauers
Harry probably didn’t expect Dick to react like he did, but he had to expect a reaction.
John Bird
NEVER apologized?
Now, that is just disturbed. What POSSIBLE downside could there be for anyone, Cheney, the Republicans, the “legacy” of the Bush Administration, if he apologized NOW – before this poor guy sees St. Peter?
Bill Arnold
Any bets on whether a media or blogger A-lister will attempt to spin this as a hit on Dick Cheney, to counteract his political resurgence?
Appalling. I’ve always assumed Cheney is striving to live his life according to some twisted global utilitarian ideal of morality, but a personal apology wouldn’t hurt.
RareSanity
@John Bird:
Apologies are for the weak, you know, liberals…
I wouldn’t have given two shits what the (perceived) repercussions would have been politically, you shoot me, and don’t (at least) fucking apologize? I’m taking every damn interview request that comes my way, calling you a drunk idiot and then suing you…
After the case settles, I’m kickin’ your ass also, too…
In the words of the late, great, Bernie Mack:
“Wheneva I see his ass, it’s gonna be a misunderstanding. There’s gonna be some furniture movin’ dammit!”
mclaren
Why is this guy still walking around? I thought they eat what they kill…
Bob
With someone like Dick Cheney, why bother with the nuances of why his political theories or policy positions are wrong-headed. He’s a total schmuck, end of story. Dick Cheney, go fuck yourself.
Anne Laurie
@Corner Stone
__
:
To be fair, if I’d just spent a week in intensive care, and still had the Secret Service crawling all over my bird-shotted body, I’d be tempted to go with the weak-arse apology strategy.
Of course, then my sense of self-preservation would have failed, and I’d have started ranting about divine punishment for being in range of Darth Cheney with a gun and not doing God’s work… or so I’d like to believe.
(Wonder what happened to the reporters who detailed those “rumors” about Cheney using that hunting trip as a cover for spending a drunk weekend with his Swiss Mistress?)
Brandon
For the life of me, I don’t understand how people can feel sorry for this guy. True, what Cheney did to him was eff’d up, but did everyone here miss the part where he was responsible for launching Rove’s career and sits on the board of his consulting firm? But somehow this is a “decent” guy? Looks like folks are getting caught up in the whole conservative “daddy” thing. All because what? He served on a prison board and made sense at one point in time? Is this how far our standards have fallen? Seriously.
Pinacacci
@mclaren: nice!
Comrade Rich
@arguingwithsignposts:
I use BugMeNot to bypass registration:
http://www.bugmenot.com/